


Statement and Reprise

by Tammany



Series: The Sussex Downs [12]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gender Identity, M/M, follow through, reactions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 07:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20373121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: This is the reason yesterday's story HAD to be written: so that today's story could follow after. Not that I don't like yesterday's. But it was prepping the soil and sowing the seed. This is the harvest: the gift of the garden. Or of the Garden.I'm rather pleased with this one. I love it when all my characters successfully manage to be their better selves in the face of life's invitation to be complete prats instead. May we all be so transcendent...





	Statement and Reprise

Crowley woke that morning with his angel at his side, reading and barely holding back giggles he was so amused.

“Whassssssssssssssssat?” He wasn’t really awake yet, and he lingered in lazy bliss on the s.

“Pratchett,” Aziraphale said, with a special, happy little bounce. “I’d been saving it during the horrible lead-up to the Apocalypse. Now I’m rationing them out like smuggled chocolates.” He shared the confidence with glee. “Lovely. Just lovely.”

It was just about then that Crowely’ slow serpent mind did indeed turn on, and require him to focus his eyes and process his audio. Another beat to work it through—then his face lit, and he greeted the angel with the tones—but not the assault-patterns—of a back-slapping pub mate.

“Aziraphale! Been awhile! Looking good…looking good… Nice jim-jams!”

The angel turned vivid pink. “Oh! Thank you. I worried. You don’t mind?”

Crowley froze…then said, mournfully, “Don’t do this to me before I have my tea, angel.” He knew—he KNEW—that this was loaded like an industrial strength rat trap. Then he heard his own voice slow just…enough…on the world “angel.”

And then he saw Aziraphale’s face fall.

“Shit.” He sat up, pulling his own hair. “Heaven. Heaven, Saints, and Ranks of Angels. Buggering St. Pete. Don’t do this to me, angel.”

Aziraphale looked back with a chipperness so extreme it looked fake even on his supernaturally chipper face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, dear. Let’s go get breakfast. Scones would be nice. And that lanky boy next door says that there’s honey from some old bee hives their caretaker used to keep.” He scrambled out of bed, back turning to Crowley as fast as he could manage, hiding his face.

Crowley swore in mental panic. Dammit, angel, why does it have to be when I’m still half hibernating? He could see his defenseless little angel, already convincing himself that Crowley “preferred” his female self.

It would have been so much simpler if they were in fact identical, inside or out. The problem was they were not. Angel was almost—but not exactly—Aziraphale. But the angel had confessed long since that he experienced the world a bit differently in female form, thought a bit differently, socialized a bit differently. People perceived her a bit differently, and as a result he perceived people a bit differently. People looked at Aziraphale and thought he was English, gayer than a tree full of monkeys in nitrous oxide, and intelligent—very intelligent. People looked at Angel and thought she was adorable, safely sexy and straight, and probably clever, but not intelligent. It was a rare person, male or female, who saw anything but a sexy armful of charm and squeaks and love.

A real bastard might try to rape Angel. But it wouldn’t take much for even your common, garden variety of arsehole to try to beat Aziraphale up in an alley, or for a common variety bitch to try to attach him as a merely convenient “gay best friend,” whether he made the offer or not.

Aziraphale was in no doubt that the body he wore mattered—and he preferred his male body. Crowley knew that—and Aziraphale knew that Crowley knew.

Which meant he had to get this right, or it was going to take a lot to ever heal the damage he could do.

Crowley was clever. But he was damned if he thought he’d ever been wise. Which was a bit of a bitch right now. It wasn’t like he could stop time and…

Well. Actually…

He snapped. And sat, looking at his frozen love, running frantic thoughts over and over.

He rose and walked around his lover, absorbing the look of him after a year of Angel. He was wearier than Angel. More worried—and not just in this frozen moment. He was more worried in general. Every smile was a victory of a valiant, hopeful heart over a brilliant and observant mind. Every laugh a victory of courage over fear. His faith in God was just that—faith, never certainty. Millennia of faith in the face of doubt.

He didn’t need more doubt regarding Crowley.

The demon walked around the room. He found the original, brilliant madras summer dress hanging in the closet. He took it out, and held it to his face. It still smelled of Angel—a blend of soaps, perfumes, feather-powder, angel dew… (Horses sweat. Humans perspire. Angels dew.) Aziraphale smelled different.

Here, for one moment, with time stopped, Crowley could admit it. He would miss Angel…and he would not see her often, even as the millennia passed. He loved both modes of Aziraphale, and would have loved still more. Angels were body-optional, in more ways than just a binary gendered way. Aziraphale could have been anyone, in any form. He could have had an animal body, just as Crowley had his snake self. (Just thinking he knew what Aziraphale could be—had been. A white stag, blue-eyed with ears that seemed red when the sun shone through them. The spirit hidden in the deer’s cry…) But Aziraphale _loved _the God-image She had first given him. In that body Crowley could feel how Aziraphale was anchored, secure, certain of one thing: he was Aziraphale. Aziraphale was him. From that secure certainty all else flowed.

If Crowley got this wrong, he’d never see Angel again. If he got it very wrong, far too soon he would not be seeing Aziraphale, either. Somehow he had to communicate his absolute commitment to Aziraphale, and at the same time his love for Angel, without triggering Aziraphale’s jealousy of his own not-quite-him variant.

He considered the dress. With a crooked smile, he bamfed it into his own interdimensional closet, with a small number of sentimental souvenirs he refused to keep where other people—even Aziraphale—could see them. He miracled the dress to never lose that precious, fragile smell of Angel.

Then he took a deep breath and focused. Hard.

Snap

Aziraphale straightened, folding his pyjamas, only to sense that odd energy that came from his demon playing with demon magics… He spun, and found him, crosslegged in the tank-top and long briefs he’d been wearing on the day of the Trial in Hell. Before him lay a tray filled with bounty overflowing: scones. Honey. Jam. Clotted cream. Strawberries, plump and ripe. Sugar. A fat pot of hot tea. Cinnamon toast with plenty of butter to moisten the sugar and spice. Delicate eggs baked in cream. A bottle of sparkling white wine, and glasses ready for it, already chock full of sliced strawberry…

“Good,” he gloated, looking quite devilish. “You haven’t dressed yet. Scramble on back here and let me tempt you.” His inflection left infinite room for interpretation of what sort of temptation was intended.

Aziraphale looked at him.

Aziraphale was brilliant. He could be very stupid: free willed creatures of independent self generally could. But he was quite able to feel all the possible disasters—and the route Crowley was offering to avoid them.

Aziraphale could let his fear and ego complicate things.

Or he could let his certainty of Crowley’s love simplify them.

He smiled, and fanned his fingers against his jaw, contemplating the offering. “My dear! You do know me, don’t you?”

An eyebrow flicked. A mouth smiled, wickedly. “Every day, in every way, including the biblical, my angel.”

The question was there: could the term of affection survive the absence of the avatar?

Aziraphale struggled with it. Part of him wanted to wail that Crowley loved _her _best.

Unlike his partner, he regularly reached the high status of wisdom. He smiled, said cheerfully, “Budge up, you old serpent,” and fell into the sheets, ready for a morning of love and luxury.

It was afternoon at Mycroft’s. Crowley was glowing. He’d crossed the Rubicon, or perhaps crossed over Jordan into his own personal heaven. Better, Aziraphale was in his happiest, chirpiest mode, almost as happy as he was when he was practicing idiotic magic tricks. Mycroft, who had known already that the angel had changed forms, had been searching possible fashion choices in beach and summer wear for the angel to try on. So the angel was scuttling in and out of one of the spare bedrooms, where he appeared himself into all sorts of styles and fabrics. Not that he needed to hide in the bedroom…but he seemed to be getting a lot of joy out of the performance of “changing.”

The demon sprawled in a large armchair in the sitting room of the big house, legs stretched long and crossed at the ankle, one arm looped over the upper corner of the upholstered back, the other gripping a tall bottle of IPA. He was fixated on the angel—even when the angel wasn’t there. It a bit disconcerting, in Mycroft’s opinion. But having seen the angel’s hesitation the night before, he felt a happy warmth on seeing how surely the demon still loved his angel…even when he was no longer Angel.

Mycroft watched the angel swan off into the bedroom again, observing him with fascinated amusement. “I have the oddest feeling that if I could see his wings all the time, they would always be fluttering,” he murmured to the demon.

Crowley raised his eyebrows high over the top line of his glasses. “He's being social. When he’s reading, or researching, or tasting something new in some cute little restaurant? Not so much.” He gave a suddenly soft smile. “Give him a book he finds interesting and he can be _so _still!” He moved; arms stretched out to try to encompass the shattering stillness of his partner. He gave a sudden laugh. “Patience sitting on a monument.”

“I thought you weren’t a reader.”

The laughter careened through the man—the demon. He pushed his glasses down and winked. “I lie,” he said, grinning like a madman.

“I never would have guessed,” Mycroft said, making a mental note of the entire exchange. The two shed clues all around them like a Malemute dog shed winter coat. He laughed to himself, thinking that, like owning friends with pets, he’d forever be tracking stray information home—the inescapable detail meeting the undeniable deduction. He’d always be covered with Celestial-clue-fur. He wondered if they made a brush for that…

He wondered what had happened to his life, that he was indulging in whimsy. It was alien. It was strange.

It felt lovely.

The dynamic had changed with the angel’s change in gender—but not between the two. Or very little. Crowley remained doting and delighted, protective, just a bit possessive. But he needed to be less possessive than previously. To Mycroft’s surprise, his attraction had reoriented on the demon, whose rail-thin build and cocky attitude swept in on him like surf, inspiring a silent curse and “OMG,” and a few moments carefully reminding himself of Lestrade every time he went to the kitchen to bring back more food and drink for his guests.

It was bewildering—he had already been surprised to be attracted to Angel. He was seldom even remotely bisexual. Yet male Aziraphale charmed and delighted him, and brought out the protector—but failed to trigger the romantic or sexual desire he felt for the female version. The lack opened the floodgates for his awareness of the demon.

“God,” he thought, trying harder than he ever had to suppress curiosity about whether Crowley was as good in bed as his every move seemed to suggest.

“Ta-da!” Aziraphale swept out of the room in a pair of light white sports pants, a beautiful button-down cotton shirt in a white-on-white brocade, with a pale rose-on-beige plaid sports jacket, and a matching bow tie. He had on a pair of sparkling white canvas shoes, styled rather surprisingly like proper oxford brogues. “Well, what do you think?” He turned slowly, posing contentedly.

“Hmmm. Lose the bow tie,” Crowley said. Then, with profound innuendo, added, “Lose all of it. Nice time for a swim, yeah?”

“Crowley! Shocking!”

Mycroft observed silently that Aziraphale was far more pleased than shocked, though—and that the demon’s smile suggested that he’d gone over the top just to comfort and reassure his angel.

They were quite good at this “couples thing,” he thought. He wondered if, with time and effort, he and Greg would develop that ability to encourage and hearten each other?

“Lose the bow-tie at home. Wear it when out—it suits you and satisfies the stuffy,” Mycroft said. “More to drink? Eat? Try on those linen drawstrings I found online? The paisley poloshirts?”

“Nope,” Crowley said, rising with the odd, easy grace of a stick insect. He slipped his arm around Aziraphale. “Swimming. Why don’t you and your fella come on over for dinner at ours tonight, and leave the youngsters time and space to sort themselves out, yeah?”

“Oh, clever!” Aziraphale squeaked.

Mycroft could have sworn that the demon grew even taller as his angel beamed at him. “Always did have the knack,” he said, grinning, as he led his beloved off.

They were just about to leave the room when John came crashing in, one of Rosie’s hands clutched in his. Seeing the demon and the angel he stopped cold, brain apparently frying circuits as conflicting feelings and observations imitated a demolition derby in his head.

Oh, bugger, Mycroft thought. Damn-damn-damn. It would be Mr. I’m-Not-Gay Watson. Now. Confronting the demon who’d saved his child’s life just the day before, and the sex-changed angel who’d helped him.

He could watch, in agonized awareness, as John looked, refused to believe, looked again, and was forced by the obvious to conclude one of two things, both disturbing to his culturally conformist self: either Crowley was dating non-identical twins, achieving a pigeon-pair to notch his headboard. Or, of course, the angel had changed sexes overnight, and where John Watson would now socially categorize him was anyone’s guess, but “transsexual” was probably the best Mycroft could hope for.

“Hi, Mr. Crowley,” Rosie crowed, waving her free hand. She looked at Aziraphale. “Hi, Angel. You changed!” She tugged forward…

John, reflexively, eyes never leaving the two in front of him, tugged her firmly back, to stand slightly behind him.

Mycoft stepped forward. “Dr. Watson.” It was the dry rattlesnake warning he used on his subordinates when they were just short of a formal reprimand. John ignored him. Instead he and the demon seemed to have fixed on each other.

Bugger. This could go so wrong….

He moved forward, took Rosie’s hand, and extricated her from John’s grip, drawing her well out of the potential line of fire. He whispered to her to go find Uncle Greg, and see if he’d take her out for lunch with him. When she had scurried off, he glanced at the three remaining in stasis.

Aziraphale looked pale, but poised, chin up and unashamed. He met Mycroft’s eyes, and gave a tiny nod of reassurance. Mycoft’s own return gaze was doubtful, but he waited.

“You saved Rosie yesterday,” John said, finally, still eye-locked to Crowley.

“Mmm.”

“I didn’t thank you.”

“Would have done it for anyone.”

“That’s not the point,' he said, bluntly. "You _saved my daughter._ Thank you.”

Crowley’s mouth worked. Then, warily, he said. “It’s all right. You’re not used to the beach. Next time you’ll stay closer, yeah?”

John jerked his chin down. Then, more apologetically—almost pleadingly—said, “I’m…not as good at this as I should be. I’m better at making decisions about wounded soldiers. I keep getting Rosie wrong, even when I’m trying.”

It broke Mycroft’s heart, and he didn’t particularly like John. But there he was, the valiant little soldier, confessing his incompetence and begging for help in the only words he’d ever manage. To the demon who’d saved his daughter when he himself had let her go skipping into mortal danger.

This, he supposed, was what Sherlock saw in the frustrating man.

Crowley studied him. Thin his chin jerked down in a firm nod. “Happens. Happens to everyone. You’ll never get it right—but if you’re lucky, you’ll never get it too wrong. If you work at it.”

John nodded, almost bashful—then risked a glance at Aziraphale. “Um…”

Aziraphale waited, prim and fair and far too obviously Angel in a new skin. But John was out of words. At last, with a fluffy little huff, the angel trit-trotted across the floor and held out his hand. With perfect manners for a Regency blade, he bowed slightly and said, “Allow me to introduce myself, Dr. Watson. Aziraphale, Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Bearer of the Flaming Sword, AKA A.Z. Fell, bookstore proprietor, at your service. I believe you have met me as Angel Fell?”

John blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Then a crooked, ironic smile grew. Then a chuckle. Then a whoop of laughter. “Fuck,” he said, and held his own hand out. “Pleased to meet you, your Principalityness. Thanks for saving my Rosie.”

“Delighted to have a hand in her rescue,” Aziraphale, shaking his hand. “And now, if you don’t mind… I have a swim to take. Crowley, my dear boy? Come along. The pool awaits.” And he swanned out in glory, madras plaid a shining glory, white canvas shoes seeming to sparkle like unicorn hooves as he led his lover home.

John and Mycroft remained. Then, eyes wide, John turned to Mycroft…

“Please tell me Sherlock is feeding me drugs again.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“You believe all this?”

“I was on the beach yesterday, John. Rosie would not be alive were it not for winged people plummeting out of the sky to save her.”

He scowled, and hunched, and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’d really rather not think about that.”

“I suspect not. But—I suspect you need to.”

“I suspect I do.” He looked at Mycroft. “I thought I was being responsible. I had her in clear sight. I was trying not to hover. I never realized the surf… or how far away I really was. Or how long it would take to reach her.”

“Anyone can make that type of mistake. It’s inexperience, not negligence. Lack of full information, not indifference.”

“But it’s a new ignorance. Every. Damn. Time. I don’t know what clothes to buy her so she looks right. Or what food to feed her when she decides she only wants white food. Or…”

Mycroft cut him off. “And I am so completely not the person to ask, you could not do worse. The Queen’s corgis knew more about raising children than I do—unless you count Sherlock, and you can see the mull I’ve made of that. But ask. Maybe the angel and the demon, for starters? I’m told they’ve been on Earth six millennia. I suspect they’ve got at least a few hints.”

John nodded. “Or I could look up a parent’s group online.”

Mycroft sighed. That was so John. “As you will. Just find some middle ground between passive aggressive funk and overcompensation. And now—I’ve sent your daughter off with my intended lunch companion. If you don’t mind, I’m going to see if there is any of Angel’s oyster stew left. I’m starving.”

John nodded. Then, when Mycroft was halfway to the kitchen, he said in mournful tones, “He really was Angel, yesterday. Right?”

“Quite right.”

John sighed. “You know, I kind of thought Angel was sexy. What does that say about me?”

Mycroft laughed, just touch wry himself. “I don’t know, John. I found her sexy, too. What does that say about me?”

“Well—bugger.” He shook his head in dismay. “I…maybe I better mind myself with Aziraphale. No knowing how any of us may react.”

“Oh, now, I daresay you’ll be fine,” Mycroft said, failing to control his wicked tongue entirely. “After all, you’re not gay. Everyone knows _you’re_ not gay…”

Their eyes met. For one short moment it was unclear what monsters Mycroft might have set loose. But fortunately John had apparently received his lessons in humility for the day. He shrugged.

“Yeah-yeah-yeah. Trust a Holmes to be a smart arse. Thanks for the time at the cottage. It’s…helpful.”

“Not a problem, so long as Sherlock’s still free to get his things moved in. By the way, Greg and I are having dinner next door later. You and Rosie and Sherlock and Janine have the place to yourselves from about five on.”

“Um. Thanks. Good to know.” He turned, then, to walk down to the cottage—and turned back. “Sherlock and the girl. Janine. How seriously do you take that?” He sounded like he was trying to encourage a shared laugh at her expense.

Mycroft could imagine what John hoped for. Two men who knew Sherlock smiling just a bit, shaking their heads at the gullible girl, clucking that Sherlock kept stringing her on. The certainty that of course, in the end, it would be the Baker Street Boys. Bro’s before ho’s.”

“Seriously,” he said. “Very, very seriously.” Then he turned to walk into the kitchen, adding softly but firmly the Parthian shot—“I like her.”

“What?”

Mycroft smiled softly to himself. “You heard me. I like her.”

To his delight Angel’s pot of oyster stew seemed never-emptying, and fresh as new. He heated a huge mug in the microwave, found the end of a very fine baguette to dip in it, a bunch of red grapes, and a glass of sparkling water. He took them out to the patio, and spent the next hour eating and watching the sea, until Greg returned with Rosie, who still had a chocolate mustache and mustard on her top, with tales to be told of her hot dog and her giant chocolate Sunday, and how Uncle Greg had taken her to see the cows at the farm down the way. Then she ran along, and left the two on their own. Mycroft brought Greg up to date on dinner plans. Thanked him for taking care of Rosie. Explained the circumstances.

“Eh. John. He’s not a bad bloke,” Greg said, smiling. “Couldn’t survive Sherlock if he was a real arse.”

“No. I suppose he couldn’t,” Mycroft admitted. “Though there are days when I greatly doubt.”

“Yeah, well. Sherlock… you know how it goes.”

“Yes. Greg—what would you feel if I changed bodies? Genders? Would you still…” He trailed off, struggling with the idea of optional gender. “Would you…”

Lestrade said, “I’m the one who was in a straight marriage for years, love. If I changed gender, would you still love me?”

“Love you? Yes. Desire you?” He shook his head, confused. “I… If you had asked me a week ago, I’d have said probably not. But—Greg, I found that merry little Angel sexy. And I don’t find Aziraphale so. But—Crowley…” He shivered. “An unexpected temptation. And you seemed to find his female self…”

“Yeah. Pretty hot.” Greg was amused. “More complicated than most people think, isn’t it?”

Mycroft shuddered. “Much more. You’re…wise.”

“Nah. Just the bi-one. I’m used to ‘complicated.’ Budge over.” Lestrade eased in beside him on the deck chair, wrapping his arms close around him. “Just as well we’re human, isn’t it?”

“Praise be to God, yes,” Mycroft said, and kissed a smile into his lover’s neck, ready to let the rest of the day worry about itself for a few hours.


End file.
